For great ideas on how to use Chef's Essences in your cooking, check out our Food and Drink recipe boards on Pinterest.

I fell in love with the breathtaking way in which just a drop or two of a wonderful essence could enhance the flavor of my foods and elevate them to a level of brightness that I’d never experienced before. All of Mandy’s delightful chefs’ essences and absolutes can be found on her website so you can handpick them for YOUR favorite chefs! -- Perfume Smellin’ Things

By trade, Mandy Aftel is a perfumer and a celebrated one at that. Fortunately, Mandy has a keen interest in the relationship between fragrance and food (she’s even co-written a book on the subject). Aftelier’s line of Chef’s Essences, pure essential oils designed for use in food and, as luck would have it, drinks. The bottles are small, but one drop (trust us) is all that is needed to magically transform any drink. There are so many choices, it may be hard to pick, so we recommend trying one of the sets. -- 12 Bottle Bar

For years natural perfume pro Mandy Aftel has been instructing cooks on how to use essential oils to enhance the taste of food (tingly peppermint, for example, can elevate a cool cucumber salad). -- InStyle

The possibilities are endless when you begin tinkering with the Aftelier chef’s essence kit. Unlike some flavorings, these all-natural elixirs are clear and true, with no heavy perfumes or off-putting additives. -- Gourmet

A cookbook I acquired in 2004, called Aroma-The Magic of Essential Oils in Food & Fragrance, has a wonderful recipe for lavender shortbread cookies. It’s a classic shortbread recipe, but with just a touch of lavender oil added into the dough. It makes a delicate and fragrant cookie—I love them! -- Mr. Peacock Blog

We first got wind of this trend when Aftelier Perfumes sent us these adorable vials, which they previously only sold to high-end restaurants like Blue Hill and the French Laundry. -- Lucky Magazine

I was initially suspicious of the use of oils in foodstuffs. But the truth was in the sniffing. The difference between ground spices and essential oils is a matter of depth, intensity and staying power. Dried lavender evokes the powder room of a fancy hotel. Lavender essential oil is a freshly bathed baby breathing hot little sighs into your neck. Cardamom is an Indian restaurant. Cardamom oil is an excursive train ride through Madurai, banyan trees and temples whizzing by. -- New York Times Style Magazine

Use food-safe essential oils to fragrance meringue. To add a flavor or aroma to meringue, Yosses turns to the fragrance industry, specifically to Mandy Aftel of Berkeley, California (http://www.aftelier.com/) for her super-concentrated, food-safe essential oils. “Take the head of a pin and dip it in the oil,” Yosses said, “and start incorporating little by little. It’s learn as you go. Some oils take on a potency with time as they combine with other ingredients.” -- msnbc.com, from talk by White House Pastry Chef Bill Yosses